Wizards of Waverly Place: Horror Story
by Thor2000
Summary: Justin and Harper are trapped in a horror story, and Alex is the one force keeping them from escaping. This story follows WOWP: Justin.
1. Chapter 1

When most parents referred to Waverly High School, they were actually referring to Tribeca Prep in the lower west side of Manhattan near Greenwich Village. The building had been used as a school for over two hundred years with minor interims where it stood empty or abandoned. The last period of vacancy was during the Late Sixties to the Early Eighties when the place had been modernized. It had thirty-two teachers and a staff of twenty for six hundred and seventy-three students with varying personality, social status, cultural background and even public acceptance. A few of the students actually cared about their education while a small minority just didn't think it was important; those were the ones with their future identities wrapped up in _America's Most Wanted_. A lot of them considered school just a minor routine fraught with various roadblocks and disappointments. That's not how Justin Russo saw it. He saw school as a test to be the best person he could possibly be.

"Yes…" He exited Professor Danvers class with a high mark on a world history test. "Solid A! Professor Danvers is the best teacher we've had in a long time!"

"I did okay…" Kevin Joseph Mitchell exited just behind him. "I got lucky because I'd already covered the material back at St. Finnian's." Kevin was a new student to Tribeca Prep. He almost equal to Justin in size, but he had lighter more brown hair and hazel eyes. Garbed in jeans and a long-sleeved white sweater, he jostled his books and folders a bit and appreciated knowing Justin to get him used to the new school. He maneuvered through the hall past crowds of class comedians, stuck up cheerleaders and brain-dead jocks, all the usual high school stereotypes. As he looked back, he noticed one in particular seemingly staring at him. Dark-haired with soft round brown eyes, she studied him as if he were a new conquest. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

"So, how's Tribeca different than your old school?" Justin asked.

"Finnian's was a Catholic school with a lot of rules." Kevin remarked. "Tribeca is much more relaxed and easier."

"If you don't mind me asking, dude…" Justin headed to his locker three over from Kevin's. "What's with that journal you're always writing in?"

"It's a short story I started." Kevin confessed replacing his history book with his science book. "I started it the day after I started here. Would you like to read it? I'm starving from some serious critique."

"Seriously?" Justin was intrigued! He never ran into anyone who had such a creative hobby. He took the black and white journal and perused through it a bit. "Hey, you named a character after me!!!"

"I do that all the time." Kevin chuckled a bit. "It makes it easier for me to picture it."

"I'll check it out and get it back to you." Justin was already interested in reading it. "I hope your grammar is above par. I'm rigid in my proofreading…"

"Way ahead of you…." Kevin was about to turn to his science class. "Why is your sister staring at me like that?"

"Because she's weird!" Justin apologized, gave Kevin a friendly punch to the shoulder and rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and forced his way over in preparation for dealing with Alex. Dressed in vivid colors with a short white skirt and light walking shoes, she leaned back against her locker with her best friend Harper next to her. Her long tresses tied up into long pigtails, Harper was a bit more than a best friend to Alex, she was a bit of a follower and sometimes a partner-in-crime.

"Alex…" Justin confronted her. "Could you please stop haunting Kevin? You're creeping him out, and I don't want him thinking you're weird! I'd like for him to meet you and then discover you're weird!"

"So funny... I want to meet him too, I'm just waiting for the right moment." Alex turned to open her school locker. "He doesn't know it yet, but we've got a date for this weekend."

"Alex, you haven't met him yet!" Harper looked at her in disbelief. "How could you have…?" Alex looked back at her in disbelief. "Never mind, I forgot just how your mind works…"

Alex lit up with a smile.

"Justin, you've got to know him." She started pumping her brother for details. "What have you learned about him?"

"Well," Justin thought a second. "His mother's a veterinarian, his dad is a contractor, and unlike me, he has no brothers or sisters." He beamed over that aspect. "He used to go to St. Finnian's out on Staten Island, he's into horror movies and he's a writer. In fact, he wrote me into his newest short story." Justin revealed the journal.

"I mean something important!" Alex grunted annoyingly. "Does he have a girlfriend?"

"He wrote a story!" Harper was intrigued! Finally someone else with a creative mind! She took the journal and scanned over line over line of handwritten descriptions, dialogues and plot points. "Justin, I see your name here! And Alex's!! And mine!!!"

"What?!" Alex did a double take, but Justin snatched the story back.

"Yeah…" Justin tucked the journal under his arm. "He tends to use the names of people he knows, and I'm not letting you read it until I have."

"Justin!" Alex grabbed her brother's shirt. "I've got to read that! I need to know what he thinks about me!!!"

"Fat chance!" Justin looked back at her. "You need to be able to read to read it." He turned away for his next class as the class bell rang. Harper and Alex were going to be late again, but as Justin departed, Alex pulled out her wand and circled it toward her brother. Kevin's journal shot out from under her brother's arm toward Alex for her to snatch it out of the air. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed it. Harper had seen it, but no one else paid much attention.

"That's so cool!" Harper loved knowing about Alex's ability for magic. "We better get to class!"

"I'll be right behind you." Alex lied. She wanted to read this journal first. She scurried through the pages trying to find her name as Harper departed her for gym class. Left alone in the hallway growing even emptier, the sounds of teachers orating from classrooms around her, Alex skimmed the excessive pages. Almost more than three-quarters of the journal had been filled in partially ineligible handwriting. Just deciphering his style of penmanship was going to give her a headache!

"He wrote me into a story, huh." Alex looked around the halls once more, laid the open short story inside her locker and recalled an incantation. "Let's see just what he thinks of me." She waved her wand. "Literary terrarium!" There was a flash of light and she turned into energy as she projected herself into a disposable reality created by the boundaries of the hand-written short story before her. Her locker slammed shut behind her and for a second she thought she was inside the locker instead of the short story. It was dark, crampt and she was bound with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes looked round upset and confused. Where was she? What kind of story was this? Lying on her back, she became frightened, her breath gasped and she struggled to free herself. She pushed upward on the lid above her and it moved a bit. Her hands continued pushing against the satin lining over her and she realized she was inside a casket. Sitting up with a deep breath, she leaned to her side, swung her leg out and stepped out on to the floor.

"Oh, he thinks in black and white…" Alex stood freed of the casket in a long black dress and looked around her surroundings. It looked like a very grand castle setting. The furniture was Gothic Victorian and the large windows showed a vast forest beyond the parapets of the castle. The walls were dull gray, the furnishings pristine but seemingly abandoned. Besides the coffin, she saw a vanity without mirrors, a bureau covered in brushes and tiaras and a curtain to a curtain filled with a lot of dark dresses. Alex looked through them and down upon the one she was wearing. She was in a full-length black skirt, a tight black bodice that pushed up her chest, a high collar and a long cape trailing behind her. Her hair was much longer here; it was hanging down beneath her waist. She quickly kicked off her high-heeled shoes.

"He thinks I'm a princess!!!" She convinced herself, but the location was much too creepy for a fantasy tale. The room was dismal, the setting forbidding and the room set more for a Stephen King novel.

"Justin did say he was into horror movies." Alex looked around confused. She looked around for a mirror to check out her reflection. "Is there a mirror here?" She wanted to see how she looked then had a revelation. "Wait… coffin, castle, no mirrors… Oh no, he didn't!!!! Please tell me he didn't make me a…." The storyline started hitting her and she doubled over in pain. A powerful urge hit her and she nearly dropped to her feet. Her eyes flashed blood red, her body started succumbing to her dependency and she had a powerful craving to preserve her existence off the lives of others. Her ruby red lips parted to reveal her sharp teeth. Alex's fingers nervously reached to her fangs to confirm what she suspected….

She was a vampire… And liking it…


	2. Chapter 2

2

The fictional Justin Russo was a thirty-year-old raconteur. In the story, he was a certified public accountant, a restaurant owner and an investor with a lot of friends and business contacts. His wife was Harper Russo, a prominent former actress and now interior designer, accompanying her husband and friends to the mountains of Eastern Germany to lay claims upon the family estate that was Castle Russoff, named for his Fifteenth Century ancestors. Justin wanted to reopen it as a hotel for the public. On the European visit with them was Brad O'Keefe, a close friend of Justin's in the story. In real life, he was a friend of Kevin's from St. Finnian, but in the confines of the story, he was now Justin's friend as well. A photojournalist by trade and foreign correspondent, Brad and his fiancée, Lily Finnerty, a friend of Harper's, looked out from the bus carrying them up the mountainside to Castle Russoff. The dark outline appeared to them from out of the dark purple sky. A schoolteacher by trade, Lily was joined by her brother Jimmy, a Chicago detective, along for the vacation. Justin promised that the castle had been largely restored during the Eighties, but it had no modern conveniences like electricity or telephones. He had acquired custody of it after paying off the taxes for the previous owner, Baron Lucius von Altebar, whose daughter still lived in the castle as manager. Their bus scuffed over the wooden bridge into the courtyard cowered over by several towers and looming structures.

"What do you think?" Justin stepped from the bus and stood in the gloomy courtyard over lit my moonlight bouncing off dark gray clouds. He had only seen this place from photos, and he knew it was much more attractive by daylight. At night, the place was huge and dark with only a random light shining off the random window.

"It looks haunted." Jimmy responded.

"It looks like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson should be upstairs studying their Defense against the Dark Arts!" Harper made a J.K. Rowling reference. Justin looked over to her and forced a grin to her.

"Honey, would I bring you anywhere you wouldn't be safe?" He reached over and pulled her close, kissing her hand tenderly. A creaking noise came from the twelve-foot high huge oak doors atop the steps into the main structure. Jimmy came up carrying a case while his sister Lily and Brad turned round to the sight. A few servants hurried out to get the luggage, but one presence stood in the doors with more presence than the German staff that ran the castle. Bridget Hennessy, Lord Altebar's daughter, stood before them in a long sleeved black sweater and long green skirt, her head held proudly aloft, her bold blue eyes shone before the new owner and his guests.

"Mr. Russo…" She held out a lantern to guide the way. "Enter freely and of your own will…."

Justin grinned proudly to Harper and led her forward on his arm. Brad and Lily were behind them with Jimmy looking back behind them. The entered a small entryway with halls going left and right then entered into a much larger and grander great hall around a large bold fireplace and hearth. Beyond the sitting area was a magnificent ascending staircase to a balcony and above that another balcony recessed behind arches and columns. The high castle walls were filled with decorations and tapestries going back over twelve generations and over five hundred years. There were countless portraits, but one of them was much larger than the rest. It had been placed seven feet off the floor over the fireplace mantle.

"She's beautiful." Jimmy looked up to a grand portrait over the fireplace. It was a full-length painting of a raven-haired female monarch. Her gown was green, gold and white, her eyes a piercing dark brown, her luxurious hair descending down over her white alabaster skin. She appeared very lifelike as if about to step out from the wall. Despite her intense beauty, she looked very fierce and determined. She was obviously a very forceful presence when she was alive.

"That's Countess Alexandra Russoff…" Justin had read about the woman in the painting. "She was the younger sister of my ancestor in the Sixteenth Century." He told his friends.

"Fifteenth…" Bridget corrected him. "Your ancestor, Count Justin Russoff III, left the castle to her as he went off to fight in the Crusades with Richard the Lion-Hearted. According to legend, in his absence, she delved into the darkest of the occult arts, hosting parties for witches and heretics and bathing in the blood of innocents to preserve her youth. When the count finally returned home, she hadn't aged a day in over twenty years."

"What happened next?" Lily asked.

"No one knows…" Bridget guided Justin and his guests into the dining hall beyond the front hall. It was very atmospheric, lit only by candles and a blazing fire in a large hearth. "History says she was hung for her crimes along with her coven, but her grave has never been found. Legend claims she was walled up somewhere in the castle. In the years following her death, it was said she had become a vampire who abducted children to preserve her youth." Bridget had leaded the way down a short corridor into the dining room. Twenty feet wide and fifty feet long, the ceiling above was supported by large cut timbers from which hung several banners of forgotten German kings. A few animal heads shared the walls with mounted swords and trophies. Lit by candlelight, the table had already been set for dinner. A servant went round uncovering dishes while another laid out more plates and produced a few bottles of wine to go with the meal.

"Sounds like a really bad horror movie." Brad referred to the castle history as he took his seat at the table after seating Lily next to her brother. Above the fireplace, Justin looked up at another portrait. It was another full-length painting of his ancestor, Count Justin Russoff III, in full armor with his fist clenched around a sword. His pose defiant, his features heroic, he had a long dark beard tinged with white.

"I'll let the staff serve you now." Bridget stepped back from the table. "The footman will bring your luggage in to your rooms. If you'll excuse me…" She turned round secretly and spirited herself from the dining room. Justin sat at the table next to Harper by his side. She was helping herself to the food set out before them. The table was twelve feet long and filled with chicken and pork chops, fish and rice, asparagus, eggplant, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage.

"Justin, this place is incredible!" Lily draped back her long red hair. "I've never known anyone who had a castle!"

"I never expected one either!" Justin was pouring wine for Harper. "When the German magistrate approached me about the delinquent taxes, he suggested turning the castle into an inn would be very good for the local economy. The local town does not have much money."

"Justin…" Brad was slicing into his chops. "Lily and I were thinking… how much would you charge Lily and I for our honeymoon here?" Lily looked up regally from her coffee.

"Brad, you and Lily are my friends! You'll always have a room here." Justin smirked and took a pork chop for himself. "You'll always be welcome here as my guests…"

"I'm going to feel like a princess here!" Lily lit up at the place.

"So…" Jimmy was trying the chicken. "Justin, do you think there's any ghosts here?"

"There's supposed to be several…" Justin looked out over the table, took his silver decanter and sipped some wine. "Haunted castles are great for tourists because people like to be scared, and the skeptical are always trying to prove what they expect don't exist. This place is going to do very well!"

Upstairs, Bridget assigned bedrooms as staff carried in luggage. She saw to it that Justin and Harper had the master bedroom in the west wing and that Brad and Lily had the room next to them with a fireplace. Jimmy would get the smaller bedroom without a bathroom but with the view over the cliff. As her staff carried out her orders, she departed for the east wing on other business. Ascending to the attic rooms, she pressed into one of the unfinished bedroom clutter with storage and covered in dust. At the closet, Bridget pushed through the back wall and opened one of the several secret passages in the former fortress. Entering another sealed up bedchamber, she crossed dusty and cobweb covered furniture and secreted herself into a forgotten hall and up a series of tower stairs. Ascending several flights, she reached the door up top and pushed aside the large silver cross against it, draping a sheet over it before she entered through the doorway into the room. There was a casket to her left and the window had been forced open. Someone had wanted out…

"Mistress…" Bridget looked around. "Mistress?" She was a bit confused. Where had her mistress vanished?

Alex slowly dropped down from the ceiling rafters; her lips dabbed a bit in something or someone she'd been eating.

"Mistress?" Bridget spun around once more. "Oh, there you are! You've never hid from me before!" She flashed a grin for a second unafraid. "Your brother's descendant has arrived. Now, you can have your revenge and escape this place."

Alex stared at her coldly. She had a long length of dialogue she was supposed to say here about revenge and honor and finally getting freed of the castle, but instead she broke free from the script of the story and succumbed to the forces possessing her. Her eyes looked over Bridget trying to figure out who she was then stepped up to her, grabbing her about the head and shoulder and forcing her to the floor.

"What are you doing?" Bridget tried fighting back, but Alex's strength was incredible. "Why are you doing this?! Did I do something wrong?!!! You promised you'd never hurt me!!! You promised!!!" Alex reared her head back and opened her mouth to her teeth, plunging them deeply into Bridget's neck and drinking of her blood. Bridget screamed trapped in this unearthly embrace. The woman who had promised her wealth was breaking her promise by making her a creature of the night as well.


	3. Chapter 3

3

"Alex has never skipped a full day of school!" In the real world, Justin was an eighteen-year-old high school student with an incompetent sister and crazy brother. After the last class, he and Harper looked all through the school asking about Alex and racing to the mall looking for her and then checking for her at their sandwich shop. No one had seen her anywhere, and his parents were livid. They were really going to punish her this time.

"The last time I saw her was at her locker!" Harper was worried. "I hope she's okay!" They had returned to the school to look for her again amidst the after school activities.

"Harper…" Justin looked back to her. "After today, Alex is going to be grounded for a long time." He looked again at her. "A very long time…." He checked the hall and whipped out his wand on his sister's locker. He hexed her combination lock and it popped open with a slight puff of smoke. Harper had jumped back from the sight. After all this time, she still hadn't got completely used to their magic. Waving away the smoke, Justin looked inside and noticed on the stack of books was a familiar black and white journal propped open to the hand-written short story in it.

"Kevin's story!" He grabbed it. "I knew she had swiped it! He's going to be so happy to get this back!"

"Alex just wanted to read it. Now, I know she's not much of a reader, but…"

"Oh, Alex wants something, but it ain't exactly to appreciate another person's writing." Justin took the story back, but he didn't understand why Alex hadn't just taken it with her after wanting it so much.

"Well…" Harper noticed Alex's red journal, but not much of anything else in the locker. "What else would she want with it?"

"To get into his head…" Justin realized then had another memory based on his sister's red journal. "Wait… you said Alex doesn't read, but she does like jumping into books."

"What do you mean?" Harper didn't understand.

"A few months ago, Alex avoided her chores by jumping into one of Max's comic books and came out as a superhero…" Justin recalled the incident. In that incident, Alex had briefly accidentally released the Joker, The Green Goblin, the Riddler and a few other comic book villains into the real world in her escape. "I bet she jumped into Kevin's story."

"Is that possible?"

"With Alex, yes…" Justin laid it out as before into the locker. "I'm going in to get her!"

"Ooo, can I go with you?" Harper grinned excitedly. "No one's ever wrote a story about me!"

"Oh, okay…" Justin thought it over and waved his wand over the two of them. "Literary terrarium!!!" There was a puff of smoke and their bodies merged as energies into the pages of the handwritten story. The locker slamming shut behind them, Harper blinked her eyes and looked around where she was. She was in the second seat of a commuter bus traveling along a dark road at night through the woods in a strange countryside. Justin was seated next to her with his arm around her. She liked that, but when he noticed it, he jerked his arm back.

"This is so exciting!!!" Harper squealed ecstatically. "This is like being in a black and white movie!"

"It sure is!" Lily pointed to the moonlight poking through the trees from the cliffs. Harper looked over the other three people and became confused.

"Who are they?" She wondered.

"I think they're Kevin's friends from his other school." Justin rationalized. "We better pretend we know them. I don't see Alex anywhere." Their bus scuffed over the wooden bridge into the courtyard cowered over by several towers and looming structures. Justin looked forward past the driver as he drove through the outer ramparts, through a large archway and into a large courtyard of darkened gardens and fountains lit by burning torches. Kevin sure was detailed in his description of the place. The location was massive! The towers were uneven in height with the highest tower reaching over twenty-five stories in height. Justin and Harper slipped from the small bus with the other guests.

"It looks haunted." Jimmy responded.

"It looks like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson should be upstairs studying their Defense against the Dark Arts!" Harper cracked out loud then paused. "Why did I say that?" The story's script was sinking into her head.

Justin uncharacteristically placed his arm around Harper again then jerked it back. Why did he keep doing that?! Harper looked at her hand and noticed a wedding ring glistening in the moonlight. Justin had one too as the bus driver unloaded their luggage.

"Justin, I think we're married!!!" She squealed excited again. "Thank you, Kevin!!!"

"Yeah…" Justin was not so excited to be crushed in her arms. "Thank you, Kevin…" There was a sound of creaking doors from the main structure as Brad, Lily and Jimmy came up alongside them. They gathered en masse and looked up to Bridget Hennessy, blonde, stunningly beautiful and dressed in a long sleeved black sweater and long green skirt. Justin smirked excitedly to meet such a looker, and Harper swatted him to pretend to be married.

"Mr. Russo…" Bridget held out a lantern to guide the way. "Enter freely and of your own will…." The crowd headed forward into the main hall. Justin and Harper again stood amazed by the high ceilings, furnishings and décor. Kevin had obviously been influenced by several castles in the movies when he described the place. It was vast, immense and highly detailed; it might have been beautiful in the real world with real colors. Jimmy Finnerty glided forward carried his one suitcase and then noticed the portrait over the fireplace.

"She's beautiful." He said.

"Found her…" Justin told Harper. He had found his sister. It was she in the portrait, but where was she actually? She had to be somewhere in the castle. He looked to Bridget. "Um, who's that?" He asked. Bridget looked at him in disbelief. He was supposed to already know the person in the portrait!

"That's Countess Alexandra Russoff…" Bridget spoke to remind him. "She was the younger sister of your ancestor in the Sixteenth… excuse me, Fifteenth Century… Your ancestor, Count Justin Russoff III, left the castle to her as he went off to fight in the Crusades with Richard the Lion-Hearted. According to legend, in his absence, she delved into the darkest of the occult arts, hosting parties for witches and heretics and bathing in the blood of innocents to preserve her youth. When the count finally returned home, she hadn't aged a day in over twenty years."

"What happened next?" Lily asked.

"No one knows…" Bridget guided Justin and his guests into the dining hall beyond the front hall. It was very atmospheric, lit only by candles and a blazing fire in a large hearth. "History says she was hung for her crimes along with her coven, but her grave has never been found. Legend claims she was walled up somewhere in the castle. In the years following her death, it was said she had become a vampire who abducted children to preserve her youth."

"Sounds like a really bad horror movie." Brad took his seat at the table after seating Lily next to her brother. Above the fireplace, Justin looked up at another portrait. It was another full-length painting of his ancestor, Count Justin Russoff III, in full armor with his fist clenched around a sword. His pose defiant, his features heroic, he had a long dark beard tinged with white.

"Justin…." Harper looked around the intimidating castle. "Where's Alex?"

"I think she's deeper into the story." He helped her to her seat. "We'll catch up with her."

"I'll let the staff serve you now." Bridget stepped back from the table. "The footman will bring your luggage in to your rooms. If you'll excuse me…" She turned round secretly and spirited herself from the dining room. Justin sat at the table next to Harper by his side. She was helping herself to the food set out before them. The table was twelve feet long and filled with chicken and pork chops, fish and rice, asparagus, eggplant, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage.

"Apparently Kevin isn't worried about his carbs…" Harper whispered to Justin. Everyone else was eating by candlelight and burning torches.

"So, Justin…" Brad was slicing into his chops. "Lily and I were thinking… how much would you charge Lily and I for our honeymoon here?" Lily looked up regally from her coffee.

"Oh, I couldn't charge my friends…" Justin smirked taking a side of chicken for himself. "You're always my guests…"

"I'm going to feel like a princess here!" Lily lit up at the place.

"So…" Jimmy was trying the fish and rice. "Justin, do you think there's any ghosts here?"

"Probably…" Justin looked out over the table. He and Harper pretended to carry on with the story by enjoying this meal and sipping wine for the first time. Harper squealed like a teenage girl to taste it and Lily looked at her amused. As they started eating, a breeze lofted through the room and the banners swayed. Brad looked up to the huge wooden chandelier holding burning candles. It was starting to sway and from somewhere beyond them, they heard moaning from under the room. Lily looked alarmed to be hearing a whistling noise pierce the room. It sounded as if something had streaked past them. The room was chilling a bit despite the raging fire in the fireplace. Jimmy pulled out his police revolver and stood ready to shoot at the first ghost he saw. Justin noticed a ball of light fly from the wall and enter the portrait. The face of his ancestor glowed, took on humanly shape and tried to talk… a sore gravelly voice trying to force from it.

"Justin…." A presence started pressing from the portrait. A silvery white haze appeared over the face of it as it tried to reach out to them. "Justin, son of my sons…" It was trying to talk, but speaking from the spirit world, it could barely muster a raspy, faint whisper. "Leave this castle while you still can! Do not wake the dead! There is a great evil here that must not be wakened! Leave the castle…." The white glow vanished from them and the room calmed. Justin looked around in shock. Lily placed her hand to her chest to compose herself. No one knew what to think.

"Kevin does the best ghost stories ever!!!" Harper squealed.


	4. Chapter 4

4

After the ghostly warning, Jimmy wasn't sure if he was going to get much sleep. He headed up to his bedroom after dinner still not convinced if the ghost was faked or real. Prodding the fire in his room, he checked to see if his revolver was loaded, locking and unlocking the clip. He was uaed to it. It came in handy everywhere. A faint shiver in his bones, he turned across the emerald green carpet to the four poster canopy bed and checked his baggage. He started to turn to the liquor cabinet, but felt himself being watched. He turned round to the dark presence in the room. She looked more like a real woman than a ghost. She had extremely long black hair, piercing dark eyes and snow-white skin. Her figure was spectacular, her mere image evoked incredible opulence draped in Gothic undertones.

"Who are you?" Jimmy reacted confused. Alex had glided closer to him.

"This was my room as a little girl." Alex spoke from blood red lips, effortlessly reciting the lines of her character. "My nanny used to read to me from that chair. My father used to sit and talk to me on this bed." She was recalling memories from her character. "Knights once waved to me from this window."

"I'm sorry." Jimmy holstered his gun. "Should I move to another room?"

"You can share the room with me." Alex gazed deeply into his eyes. His will was strong, but hers was greater. She gazed deeper and deeper into his mind, breaking down his defenses and taking him under her power. All Jimmy could see was her eyes widening and studying him. Her hands reached out to embrace him, her teeth bared from her lips and then buried into her neck. Jimmy groaned from the pain. From his life force ebbing into her, Alex found herself growing stronger, her might increasing, her power surging through her mortal body. She was going to be a god!

"Harper…" Justin paced back and forth in his room before the fire in a large fireplace. "This story might be too much for you. I'm going to take you out of here then come back for Alex."

"Oh, come on, Justin…" Harper sat on a grand canopy bed with an emerald green comforter amidst grand furnishings, polished oak chairs and extravagant period furniture. "I like the idea of us playing husband and wife." Justin wasn't listening. He took his wand out and gestured between them.

"Literary terrarium!" He called, but nothing happened. Harper looked to him. Maybe he hadn't said it right. "Literary terrarium!" Nothing was happening.

"Justin, what's wrong?" Harper noticed his worried look.

"I don't have my powers!" Justin tried again. "Literary terrarium! Literary terrarium! Literary terrarium!" He reacted afraid. "Harper, we can't get out of Kevin's story!!!"

"What?!!!" Harper freaked. "Why not?!"

"I don't know!" Justin tried to think. "Maybe it's because he named the character after me! I've always been able to get out before! We may need to follow the story to the end!" Someone else screamed and Justin rushed out of the room first. Garbed in her robe, her red hair combed out, Lily had come running from her brother's room. All she wanted to do was to see her brother's room, and she had found him larying prostrate across his bed. His skin ghastly white, his head hanging off the bed, he looked as if he'd been dead for a long time. Just how was that possible? Brad reached to him and felt for a non-existent pulse.

"What happened to him?!" Brad stepped back as Justin looked closer. Lily was crying over Harper's shoulder.

"Look…" Justin had noticed something he didn't like. "I don't want to scare anyone here, but… does anyone know anything about vampires?"

"You mean…" Brad looked up. "Like in the movies?"

"Yeah, but I mean… real vampires." Justin responded. He gestured Brad out of the room and headed to the hall. Closing the door to Jimmy, Justin posed briefly thinking. Harper was looking at him for answers. They were trapped in a vampire story? She thought they'd have a few scares; she wasn't expecting to be running for her life!

"Look, the movies get most stuff right." Justin took charge. "They're impervious to harm, but they can only be killed by a stake through the heart, and they can't stand crosses, holy water or garlic. They are vulnerable in sunlight, but it doesn't necessarily kill them, and they do sleep in a coffin lined with the soil from the land of their birth. Silver is good to use against them. It's an anathema against all unholy creatures."

"Justin…" Brad was impressed. "How do you know this stuff?"

"Donnelly's Guide to Mystical Creatures, First Year Wiz-Tech Required Reading." Justin felt safe to tell the truth in an artificial reality. "Now, I suggest we lock the ladies in one of the bedrooms to protect them then Brad and I will head down to the dining room and get the sterling silver. We're going to need it."

"Justin!" Harper stepped forward. "You're going to leave two girls alone unarmed?!"

"Jimmy has a gun." Lily confessed. Brad heard her and went after it.

"Does it have silver bullets?" Justin asked.

"Nope!" Brad checked the clip.

"Well, it will slow them down…" Justin was wishing for a tank covered in silver that fired wooden stakes.

"Look!" Harper reacted a bit. "This isn't a stupid movie, and we're not two hysterical females! Lily and I are not hiding in a bedroom to wait to be picked off. We're going with you because you guys might need protecting!"

"Okay…." Brad looked to Lily. "Why don't we all go to the kitchen to get the silver?" He suggested. "Besides, I really don't want to leave Lily alone."

"Fine…" Justin settled for that course of action. "The back way to the kitchen is this way…" He headed off the main hall through an archway, down a few steps toward the front of the castle. The place had grown painfully quiet. They could hear wind buffeting off the exterior of the castle and faint whistling sounds of the breeze blowing through cracks and windows. Harper looked behind her as she heard someone coming up behind them.

"Justin…" She stopped him from continuing down the circular stairway to the dining room. "Someone's following us." She looked at him ready to scream.

"It could be Alex…" Justin didn't follow Brad or Lily. He stayed where he was with Harper by her side. She looked like a pale mannequin with long dark hair from the pale blue moonlight streaming through the window. Nervously peering back over the barely lit hall, Justin heard the whistling sound of a breeze coming through the place. Something was coming up behind them all right. He saw their shadow in the torches near the restored bedrooms.

"Al-Al-Alex????" Justin barely spoke. The shadow was starting to wander away, but it apparently heard him and started coming closer.

"Ahoy there!!!" Justin's brother, Max jumped outward from around the corner playing with a sword. He was wearing the headgear and shoulder plates from a suit of armor. "This place is so cool! I've been here for almost an hour looking for you! Dad is so mad at you guys for vanishing. Harper's here too?! Isn't this place great!"

"Max!" Justin calmed down. "Where'd you come from?"

"Looking for you and Alex… You see, I was reading this journal in Alex's locker with your names in it, and figured you guys were in the story." Max reacted a bit distracted as he played with the sword he had found. "How's Alex like being a vampire?"

"Alex is the vampire?!!!" Harper reacted and shared worried looks of fright with Justin. "What kind of crazy story did Kevin write here?!"

"You mean Kevin the new guy?" Max asked. "Well, that explains a lot. I knew Alex would never write a story with herself as a vampire!"

"Max…" Justin rolled his eyes. "Kevin wrote us in the story; we can't get out because he wrote us into it! We got to follow it to the end. Can you tell us how it ends?"

"It doesn't." Max stopped waving the sword. "He hasn't finished it yet!"

"What does that mean?" Harper asked.

"It means we can't get out unless Kevin finishes the story… and Alex could get us before then." Justin looked annoyed then back to his brother. "Look, Max, you're not in the story, you can get out. Take the story to dad and tell him where we are. He'll know what to do!"

"Okay, later…" Max was exploring the place. "I want to explore the dungeon!"

"Max!!!" Justin and Harper yelled at him.

"Fine!!!" He rolled his eyes disgustedly at them. "But I'm coming back later by myself!"

"Don't care!!!" Justin looked at him disgusted. Max said the proper counter spell and popped out. Shaking his head exasperatedly, Justin held Harper holding on to him for solace.

"This is not fun! This is not fun at all!" Crying a bit, she held on to him, not appreciating her chance to be in his arms at last but for the support. There was a bit of smoke from when Max popped out, but it was convalescing and churning with the darkness. It was forming, shaping and taking on a human form with extraordinary female anatomy. Harper would kill for a figure like that, but she was not so happy to see who it belonged to at the moment. Alex's face and waving hair started melting from out of the darkness and turning whole. Her eyes were completely black. She was a vampire all right. Justin started turning around to his sister.

"Hey, Alex…" Justin tried not to be scared. "What's it like being a vampire?"

Her height at peaked out at just over six feet tall. Her breath racing, dark energies flowing through her, she grinned toward him, her ruby lips separating over rows of sharpened teeth.

"See you, Alex!!!" Justin turned and ran dragging Harper down the hall. His sister roared after him and rushed after him. Racing around a corner, through the gallery of portraits and through an archway, he slammed the door to the tower behind him and rushed down the stairs to the first floor. Alex pushed the door off its hinges as it sailed several feet and nearly hit Harper rushing down away from her. Leaping off the landing to meet them below, Justin just barely escaped her into the trophy room, slamming the door between them and his possessed sister.

"I hate this movie!!!" Harper screamed terrified for her life.

"Dad!!!" In the real world, Max had made it back to the sub shop. Tired and out of breath, he looked at his father and mother covering for their kids' chores.

"Max!" Jerry Russo was more than angry. "Where's your brother and sister?! They should have been home hours ago!!!"

"They're in here." Max dropped the journal and tried talking before breaths. "One of Justin's friends wrote a story with Justin, Alex and Harper in it…." He stopped for a breath of air. "And now they can't get out!" Jerry grabbed the story and started reading it. His wife reacted confused. Her kids were trapped in an amateur short story?

"Jerry, is that possible?" Theresa had thought she had heard every dumb excuse in the book, but this one was the most creative.

"Yes, it is…" Jerry was jumping and reading ahead. "This isn't good. This is not good at all." He stopped and looked up. "This kid wrote a story about a vampire named after Alex, and if she hopped into it, she being a wizard would be possessed by the character. Worse yet, if she kills Justin and Harper in the story, she'll escape the story…. As a real vampire."

"Cool!!!" Max did not understand the severity. "Alex is going to be a vampire!" His mother looked at him disapprovingly.

"We got to get this kid to finish the story quickly so that Justin wins." Jerry reacted seriously.


	5. Chapter 5

5

In trying to escape Alex, Justin and Harper had no choice to flee from her back up to the second floor. She was faster, stronger and more vicious than before, but she could be held back by two wooden sticks taped together as a cross. The sight of it somehow drove her back for the moment, and they ran back toward the bedrooms to rejoin Brad and Lily hiding in their bedroom.

"What happened to you guys?"

"Never mind that!" Justin looked round expecting his sister's inevitable return. "Did you get the silver?!"

"We never found it." Lily confessed. "Someone hid it!"

"Alex!!!" Justin cursed. "Always one step ahead of me! Let's just get out of here!" Justin took charge and rushed for the main hall down the corridor from them. They were coming up on it as someone knocked down the door from a bedroom. It was Bridget. Her blonde hair pulled down over her face, she seemed to be resisting something trying to overwhelm her. Her eyes were bright red as she reached to Justin, pulling him close to take a bite from him.

"Get off him!" Lily used her brother's revolver to shoot Bridget to the head. The blonde governess reared backward violently from the blast, her wounds already trying to rapidly regenerate and heal themselves. Justin dashed out on to the top landing and lead Harper down to the main floor. Brad and Lily behind them, they dashed across the room as Alex melted from out of the shadows ahead of them at the entrance. She gestured the doors to slam shut with a loud thundering crash and looked back to her brother and best friend.

"Alex, fight it!" Justin called to her. "Alex, it's me!! Justin! Your brother! You can do this!!!"

Alex hissed at his effort. Her body levitated up into the air and she jumped up after her brother, but Brad came in between to save him. Her mouth open, Alex plunged her teeth into Brad's neck, driving him to the floor as Lily screamed. Brad reached toward Lily as Alex bit into his neck.

"Out the kitchen!!!" Justin pushed Harper and Lily back to the dining room.

"Hey, Kevin…" Back at Waverly Place, Jerry met with Kevin in his shop. "I need a favor from you. Um, could you finish your story?" He slid it across the table.

"My story…" Kevin reacted confused. "Why?"

"Because…" Jerry mused a bit, looked to his wife and Max at the counter then back to the young writer. "Um, okay, I'm going to lay it on the line. Justin and Alex are wizards. They practice magic. They're trapped in the story right now, and I need you to finish it so that Justin wins. I really don't want to see my daughter as a vampire." He grinned trying to be Kevin's friend.

Kevin looked at him as if he was nuts.

"You're trying to tell me something, aren't you?"

Jerry groaned upset and in a hurry. He grabbed Kevin by the collar, dragged him toward the kitchen and through the cooler entrance. They didn't end up in the cooler; they had ended up in the lair located in the attic loft. Spells Jerry had created before the loss of his magic enabled him to move the entrances around so that the attic and cooler often changed places. Max dashed along after them and watched his father shove Kevin into Justin's chair at the desk.

"Max, show him!"

"Show him?" Max reacted unsure. He was to prove he was a wizard to Kevin?!!

"Show him!!!"

"Okay…" Max nervously pulled out his wand. "Murrieta animata…" He enchanted his father's trophy and the little figure started moving. Kevin's jaw dropped in shock to watch it. It stretched, yawned and looked around.

"See you, losers…" He just off the base and ran down and across the floor. Max stepped aside as the tiny silver figure vanished under the sofa. Kevin even freaked a bit and tried to run himself, but Jerry caught him and forced him back to the seat.

"My kids are stuck in your story." He dropped Kevin's story before him and handed him a quill. "Make sure Justin wins!"

"I can't work like this!!!"

"I can have Max turn you into a mouse."

"There's a spell for that?" Max lit up with the idea.

"I prefer a mechanical pencil." Kevin took the one Justin usually used from the cup holder and started writing. He had only gotten as far as the chapter where Justin and Brad had discovered Alex's coffin in the tower room, not that Alex was actually following the storyline. She had taken out the staff and hid them in the pantry, turned Bridget into a vampire when she was supposed to give her life to destroy her and had killed both Jimmy three chapters early and even Brad, and he was supposed to survive! The brunette diva was running loose in the story. With Lily wielding her brother's revolver and Justin armed with a cross, Harper had somehow gotten lost. One minute, she was racing behind Justin and Lily, and then she was by herself. Where did they go? Harper wandered into the library trying to find them.

"Justin?! Lily?!" She whispered for them at high whisper looking for them. Scared, crying, she looked around the room once, around the bookshelves and realized she was alone, but when she looked around again, Alex was hanging off the ceiling above her like a giant spider in a huge black cape. Upon seeing her, Harper screamed and dashed for the entrance.

"Harper…"

"Alex…" Harper was crying. "You're not going to hurt me…. Right?"

"Of course not, Harper…" Alex welcomed her best friend into her arms. "I'm just play-acting. I'd never hurt you…" She deceived her best friend. Lowering her guard, Harper gasped unafraid and moved to embrace Alex and they hugged each other as friends, but then Alex felt those urges again building up in her. Her eyes turned black once more, her fingers draped Harper's hair back. She reared her teeth back and buried them into Harper's neck. Screaming out loud from the pain, her best friend keeled backward, Alex's holding her up as she drank from the blood filling the wound. Harper's eyes widened in shock and she fell limp. Alex's voice growled and hissed. She couldn't stop herself nor did she want to stop herself. Harper's eyes rolled back as she lost consciousness. Alex was getting stronger… she was becoming unstoppable!

"I don't understand something." Upstairs in the observatory, Lily shielded Justin with her brother's gun. "Alex killed everyone but us. Why isn't everyone returning as a vampire?"

"Not everyone killed by vampires are supposed to come back." Justin revealed. "It takes only one bite from a vampire to kill you, but three bites from a vampire over time to come back as one." Justin paused. "I read that in a Dark Arts book at Hogwarts."

"What?" Lily didn't understand. That wasn't part of the story!

"Forget it…"

"I'm sorry about Harper." Lily checked the hall.

"She'll be okay as long as I get out of here." Justin understood these disposable realities very well. They were only as real as they were meant to be. Wizards and mystics had been jumping in and out of fake worlds for over a hundred years. They were like highly detailed plays or artificial holographic simulations. They were the magic versions of role-playing games. The only problem was that the magic sometimes flowed both ways, and objects as well as magic could be dragged out to the real world in the same way wizards could create objects from out of their thoughts. If Alex succeeded, he'd never get out, but if he succeeded, he could save both Alex and Harper. He heard the floor creak behind him and whirled around. Bridget grabbed his little cross from him, and it started smoking in her hand.

"Justin!!!" Lily turned round with the revolver at the ready. She fired clip after clip into Bridget, but she continued coming. Bullets going through her, and the wounds sealing back after them. The determined redhead continued firing to cover Justin. He looked down the other hall and noticed Alex watching from afar. If Bridget tired them out, she'd move in and take over.

"Alex!!!" Justin tried to appeal to her. "I talked to Max; dad will get us out of here!!!"

"Who says I want to go anywhere?!" Alex ignored his plea to her. She even more beautiful as an adult than she was before, her strength was increasing exponentially and she was growing even more powerful by the second. Nothing was going to stop her! Trapped between his sister and Bridget, Justin watched as Lily continued firing at Bridget and then at Alex. The shots couldn't stop them, but they slowed them down. Unfortunately, the bullets didn't last forever. When the gun started clicking, it's last shell spent, Lily froze in shock before the window. Her face and chest regenerating to her full beauty, Bridget hissed and leapt at Lily, but the window Lily crashed into them couldn't hold them both. The two of them crashed through it and fell down off the cliff into the river below, leaving behind brother and sister. Realizing he was alone, Justin looked back to his sister. The half of Alex's face blown away by gunshots was regenerating back even more perfect that before. Alex's hand caressed her flawless features, and she turned to her brother once more. Justin jumped to his feet and raced again for another attempt out through the great hall. Alex was coming after him, and without magic, he was pretty much defenseless. He needed a weapon, something special such as an enchanted sword that could kill vampires! He felt a weight appear to his right hand. Justin turned round with his ancestor's sword suddenly in his hand.

"Where did that come from?!!!" Justin stood surprised!! "Kevin!!!" He looked around the room. "Are you out there writing?" He could hear the distant pencil scratching crafting the world even more. It sounded like a distant cosmic dagger scraping and cleaving through the skies as Kevin continued finishing his tale. Appearing atop the grand staircase, Alex cocked her head up to the sounds. She heard it too and looked up and around her, but she was the vampire here. She was the powerful one. She was going to kill her brother! She leapt off her feet and glided down to the floor. Justin shivered before her as she lifted the armchair up in her arms to crush her brother. Justin felt something tingling in his fingers.

"Expelliamus!!!" Justin cast a spell with his free hand and knocked his sister backward several feet into the burning fireplace. The chair tumbled aside as the flames engulfed Alex and started burning her up trying to destroy her.

"I got my powers back! I got my powers back!!!" Justin was ecstatic, but only for a few seconds. Despite her charred and incinerated body, Alex started pulling herself out of the fire. Her charred skin falling off to reveal her unblemished white skin, her seared scalp suddenly alighting with long dark hair pouring down over her shoulders, her skeletal figure began turning white, whole and shapely again. Her beauty was returning to her and with it all her dark powers. In what could only happen in a fiction, even her charred and ruined dress and cape were reweaving themselves.

"Alex…." Justin held the sword on her. "We need to get out of here. You're not thinking straight!"

"You're not going anywhere!!!" Alex gestured the sofa to knock him over, but Justin just dodged and swerved around it. Alex summoned a poltergeist attack of flying objects at him, but Justin moved around quickly and effortlessly deflecting them on the sword. Alex levitated a heavy bookcase and tossed it at him!

"Destructo!!!" Justin shattered it into countless pieces with a spell. Wishing he had a light saber than a sword, he lunged at his sister and tried to kill her, but she was still his sister. He couldn't kill her. Trying to incapacitate her, he tried to knock her out cold, but she was a bit smarter than that. She did a pirouette to avoid him, and Justin gestured to a cabinet to tumble and knock her over, but she just lifted high up into the air, levitating herself to avoid his mystical assault and then landing again. When she lunged at him, he cleaved her right arm off at the shoulder with the sword. Her intense high-pitched scream filled the entire castle, searing the air with her unholy essence. It was like the sound a cat made after getting its tail trapped in the door, but much more louder, longer and more intense. Gripping the sword, Justin turned to the hall to the dining room. Bridget was standing there dripping wet and drenched through her clothes. Having survived the river, she had come to take her revenge.

"What's the matter, Justin?" Her eyes were completely black. "You thought I was beautiful before!"

"You got ugly really fast." Justin quipped.

"No!!!" Alex came between them. "Justin is mine!!!" She grabbed Bridget by the neck with her one arm and reared the blonde inexperienced vampiress off her feet. Bridget was fighting back, and when Justin looked again, Alex was turning both herself and Bridget into black smoke, both parts pulling together into one large cloud. Alex's decapitated arm had vanished into smoke as well. Not willing to face either of them, Justin took his sword and turned again for the doors, ready to break through them. He'd have to use magic to open them.

"Alohomora!!!" He fired a beam of power through the sword. The doors rattled and shook trying to open, but they may be too big for that spell. He'd need to amp it up. Backed to the locked and barred entranceway, he tried to recall the right incantation, but something made him look back. He watched as black smoke started coming from all over the castle. It was pouring from the fireplace, from the cracks in the bricks, from the points in the tiled floor and even from other rooms. It all came together as a huge shape of dark smoke filling the air over the balcony, expanding, increasing in size and churning in intensity. From out of it, one of Alex's giant arms the width of a California redwood struck the floor and then the other. Merged with Bridget, she had restored her arm and increased her size several times over. Of incredible size and volume, she filled the entire great hall, her head the size of a small bus partially grazing the rafters as she towered over her brother on her hands and knees.

"Kevin!!! If you wrote that, I'm never speaking to you again!!!" Justin screamed and tried to stab his sister's hand from taking him. He jabbed and cut at her trunk-sized fingers curling around him, the sword knocked from his hand as he was violently jerked off his feet. Alex lifted him up ready to swallow him.

"Little brother…" Alex towered over him. Her voice was a breath of steam over his face. "Anything to say before I swallow you up."

"Just one thing…" Justin choked a bit while crushed in her fingers and looked up over her billboard-sized features. "Literary terrarium!!!" He screamed and everything went white. Alex dropped him and he hit the floor, but he was much closer to it this time. Spared the risk of a twenty-foot fall, he started lifting himself up and realized he was at home in the lair. Harper was next to him alive and clutching her neck looking for bites. Alex was back to normal too. She was human-sized again, in her own clothes and still thinking she was a vampire. Gasping and hissing, she was experiencing lingering symptoms from her experience. Her father lurched her up to help her.

"Alex!! You're home! You're home!!!" Jerry tenderly comforted her. "You're home now! You're okay!!!" Quickly recognizing him, Alex shed a few tears and hugged him. Harper quickly hugged Justin glad to be safe. Harper looked unsure to Alex. She was so sorry for hurting her, but it wasn't really her. It had been the story. Kevin looked over to them from the desk. He had finished his story just twenty minutes ago. It wasn't until Jerry read completely through it that the three figures suddenly jumped from it in the form of Justin, Alex and Harper. The three of them glared back to Kevin looking at them. Harper adjusted her hair. Alex felt to confirm she was a teenager again and not an over-developed succubus.

"So…" Kevin looked to them. "How'd you guys like my story?" He was starving for an honest opinion. Alex looked at Justin, and Harper felt her neck now healed. Justin rolled his eyes upset and disgusted, then the three of them laid into him, knocking him over, punching and hitting him over and over and over.

"Hey!!!" Jerry watched the abuse. "He did save your lives!!!"


	6. Chapter 6

6

In the original story, Bridget had turned noble and had killed Alex as a vampire by pushing her out of the castle and killing them both on the rocks below. Kevin explained that Alex the vampire had been bound to the castle due to the ancestor's curse and that being forced from it would kill her. It was a far cry from the alternate tangent that Alex had caused while possessed. Everyone but Jimmy was supposed to have survived in the original plot, but there was enough to indicate that Lily might have been possessed by Alex in a sequel. Not that Justin wanted to live that version either, but in the end, Kevin had had his mind bewitched and lost a few memories of the previous day... especially the part about Justin and Alex being "wizards." As far as he knew, he'd been invited to the Russo's for dinner and no longer recalled Alex and Justin being able to practice magic, although, he didn't quite remember finishing his short story with Alex being a vampire either.

"Alex…" Justin and her were back at school the next morning, and Kevin was ahead of them at the water fountain with his pack. "You can't blame him for what happened. Technically, everything happened because you zapped yourself into his story."

"Oh, I can blame him…" Alex jostled her pack a bit. She looked at her brother wanting her to do right. "No, you're right." She stopped, hesitated posed and looked to Justin. "It's just… he made me so evil! How can I deal with that?! I killed Harper and almost ate you!" A few students ignored her weird comments.

"Talk to him…" Justin whispered to her.

"Fine!" She sighed aggravatedly and motioned across the school commons to catch up with Kevin. He started for the stairs, but she swung around the water fountain and around a cloud of classmates to overtake him.

"Hey, Kevin…" Alex confronted him, still trying to remind herself that he no longer recalled all of what happened last night. The young writer turned to notice her.

"Hi, Alex…" He looked to her while pulling up his pack. "I liked having dinner with your family last night. Your mom is a great cook."

"Actually, she ordered that in."

"Oh…"

"Kevin…" Alex looked over to her brother then to Kevin again. "Why did you make me a vampire in your story?"

"Oh…" Kevin reacted a bit. "Well, you see, um, how can I explain this?" He asked himself. "Uh, well, did you ever see the movie, _Halloween_?"

"Big guy chasing young girls." Alex had seen it. "Yeah, I know the movie."

"_Friday the 13th_?"

"Bigger guy in hockey mask chasing girls."

"_Nightmare on Elm Street_?"

"Ugly guy with knives chasing girls." Alex knew the movies. "What's your point?"

"Alex…" He invited her to sit at a bench. "Most horror movies only follow one format, and they rarely break it. I'm a big fan of _Night of the Demons_, _Inheritance _and _Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman_ because in those movies, no one ever expects the good-looking girl to be the threat. Those are the kind of stories I like… the one's where the most attractive girl is the one who everyone should be afraid, but they never are because they never expect it. I guess it's because I'm usually awkward around those types of girls, and… I guess I'm trying to explain that kind of fear of rejection in ways that others can understand them."

"So…" Alex was slowly getting it. "You use horror stories to relate your insecurity with girls you consider attractive." She understood him and was starting to like him much more.

"Alex…" Kevin looked at her. "I bet your looks intimidate many more guys than you actually date."

"Oh…" Alex started mustering her very own confidence. "Well, I want you to take me on a date. It's going to be for pizza, you're picking me up at seven on Saturday and you're bringing flowers, preferably roses... Chocolate is optional. Don't be late." She rose, grabbed her pack and left to meet Harper. Kevin remained sitting for a while as if he was a statue. What just happened? What was that? Did he now have a date with Justin's little sister?

"What was that?" He looked at Justin.

"You've just been conned by Alex Russo." Justin explained. "I've been there many… many… many times."

"She's…"

"Something else?" Justin agreed. "I know!"

"You know…" Kevin followed Justin for their first class. "I had a dream about her last night. I think I'll start another story with Alex as a superhero with magic powers."

"Great…" Justin made a face of sheer torture. "Just do me a favor and don't use my name… better yet, give her a twin sister!"

END


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